


Echo of Solitude

by Valitiel (Vishnal)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Brothers, Gen, Mourning, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 20:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7283725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vishnal/pseuds/Valitiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short drabble about Hanzo's concerning mourning proccess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echo of Solitude

One-year anniversary.

                Hanzo lights the incense after putting a brown speckled feather on a glass pedestal. He tries to steady his breathing, but it is harder than meditating on any other day. He hasn’t been able to meditate since Genji died. Hanzo struggles to take deep, even breaths. His eyes begin to sting with tears of frustration.

He looks up at the shreds in the dragon banner and suddenly the smell of incense explodes into the smell of a rice paper lit aflame with dragon fire. Everything rushes back to him in a burst, and the tears begin to fall.

“Genji. I- it was my duty. I failed my duty as your brother and as the head of the clan. I was unfit to lead the clan.” He begins to yell after the first initial sentence.

He feels a lot of feelings. None of which are positive: anger, sadness, regret, caginess and fatigue.

Eventually the anger becomes and unstoppable deluge. He is angry and his heart is set on anger. Anger at himself for not being better. For his brother for not being better. At them both for not finding a compromise that would not have lead to senseless violence. At the clan. At the world. He feels a lot of anger and nowhere to put it all.

Hanzo lets out a battle yell and swipes away the incense and the feather. The glass pedestal that the feather rested upon bounces off the wooden floor and shatters into pieces. The sharp sound echos into the night.

Hanzo slams his hands on the ground, even as it is littered in glass shards. He hisses as the glass cuts into his hands and he feels the anger melt away from his body. He slumps down, the anger dissipated from his body, and mumbles his apologies to his brother.

He quietly scolds himself for lashing out at his brother when clearly he had the shorter end of the stick. The night ends in tears and blood. Hanzo leaves the temple before anyone comes to inspect the loud yelling and noise.

Two-year anniversary.

                Hanzo lights the incense after putting a brown speckled feather on a glass pedestal. He bought a new glass stand during his travels and had climbed a mountain to find the bird of which sheds these feathers. He tries to breathe evenly. His eyes still sting this year, probably more from the smoky incense than the freshness of the emotions of his brother’s death.

His yakuta isn’t on fully. Even though it is night it is hot. He begins to do his incense offerings and reflect on Genji’s death. He replays it in his head. The first shot into his brother’s shoulder to incapacitate, followed by the scatter arrow that was nearly directly shot into his face, mostly deflected, but the splintering arrows marring Genji’s face. Then the unsheathing of his blade.

Hanzo breathes deeply. He pulls out an arrow. He tells Genji about his travels. How he stays far from Hanamura and how the clan has also turned on him. How the Shimada clan is now dealing to gangs and warlords and how he would have never found honour with the clan. He tells Genji about the emptiness of travel.

The underlying anger.

The exhilaration of kissing death on the lips. He thinks about putting the arrow through his throat or running the sharp sides of it along his jugular. He even puts the arrow’s steel against his neck for a moment. but he knows that killing himself is the worst way to go.

He puts the arrow to his arm, just under the shoulder that has no tattoo. The same shoulder that the first arrow had pierced. He makes two notches. The cuts are deep enough to scar, but not deep enough to damage muscle. They bleed profusely. He blows out the incense and cleans up after himself. He lets himself bleed though. He leaves the way he came in. “I will not forget you Genji.” Hanzo runs into the night.

Ten-year anniversary

                Hanzo every year up until ten does the same thing. He remembers. Lets the feelings wash over him and then he makes sure to remember Genji. He washes tries to wash the taste of death out of his mouth with blood, but he still yearns for the taste.  Every year as he kneels there he thinks on dying. He presses the arrow head against his neck and feels the unsettling pounding of a pulse that should not continue to pound on. He says less and less every year. There might be a self imposed vow of silence. He furthers himself from people. Every year he becomes an echo of his former self. Less angry, less angry and more faint. An echo eventually ends.

He remembers Genji.

He wonders if Genji remembers him.

Green lights light up from rooftops away. There is a quick movement and then stillness between the moment where Hanzo puts the arrow head to his neck, breathes in enough to feel the steel press on his artery and the moves it to his arm. Hanzo looks around for a moment and his senses sharpen. He could have sworn there was a metal clatter. Soft and light, perhaps a metal filament dropping far away.

The scarring goes down to the elbow. It is precise in the length and depth of each scar. Some seems to have been re-opened and repeatedly cut apart. The green lights disappear before Hanzo says his goodbyes.

…

“I will not give you the death you wish for Hanzo.”


End file.
